Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to wireless digital communication and, more specifically, to a technique for implementing a latency-sensitive communication protocol in a wireless mesh network.
Description of the Related Art
A communication protocol may be described as “latency-sensitive” when the robustness of that protocol depends on data packets being transmitted and/or received across a communication link with precise timing. For example, a device configured to implement a latency-sensitive communication protocol could transmit data packets across a communication link to another device with a particular data rate. The other device could continuously verify that the communication link remains active by determining that a data rate associated with received data packets meets some threshold value.
Latency-sensitive communication protocols are generally implemented on communication links that have low latency and high reliability. Low latency may be required in order to ensure the precise timing of the data packets transmitted across the communication link. High reliability may be required in order to ensure the delivery of each precisely-timed data packet. A communication link that does not have both low latency and high reliability is oftentimes unsuitable for implementing a low-latency communication protocol.
Various networks of devices currently exist that rely on latency-sensitive communication links. With the growing interconnectedness of networks across the world, there is an increasing need to couple these existing networks to other, more modern networks, thereby allowing these different networks to communicate with one another.
However, modern networks oftentimes include communication links having higher latency and lower reliability than that typically required by the latency-sensitive communication protocol implemented by the existing networks. Consequently, the existing networks may not be compatible with the modern networks.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is a needed in the art is a more effective technique for transmitting data according to a latency-sensitive communication protocol.